


Graduation

by spiralmaiden



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/F, Homophobic Language, Magical Realism, kinda goes with the territory though, sort of, used sparingly and for artistic emphasis only
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:12:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2475989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiralmaiden/pseuds/spiralmaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 10 years and a dreary March, and Anthy has almost forgotten she is a witch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Graduation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [veleda_k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veleda_k/gifts).



> I wrote this trying to make a statement about the expectations fans have for actors and I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I also may have tried too hard to match the atmosphere of the show. I need a bit more practice in that area still, I think. I hope it's an enjoyable read anyway. Based loosely around ep. 34 of the anime, as that's my absolute favorite.

It's been 10 years and a dreary March, and Anthy has almost forgotten she is a witch.

For quite some time after she stepped over the threshold of the gates of Ohtori, she had relied on that part of herself to get by. But as the years passed, she had used it less and less. Like a car without a key, she let it rust over. That's how she finds herself, at 24, working in a small cafe by the train line just a few blocks from the tiny first-floor one-room place she calls home.

This March is the grayest and loneliest anyone can remember, or at least it seems so from the conversations she can overhear from the tables crammed together in the sitting area. Anthy can't help but agree. It looks like even the cherry blossoms will be late. She brushes a strand of dark hair out of her face as she leans on the counter of the cafe, head heavy in her hands, and watches the gray swim in front of her eyes.

As the day goes on, the cafe hits its afternoon rush. The hot water pours into the teapot with a tinny rising melody as Anthy makes another batch. She sets the leaves steeping and picks up a tray of dessert orders. She sways between the tables, so intent on where she's going that she almost misses the hand that comes out to stop her. She looks down, expecting a question from this other customer, but instead her eyes widen and she almost drops the tray.

"Oh, so it is you!" says the owner of her hand, which lifts to the woman's temple in a little salute of greeting.

Anthy feels a surge of warmth fill her body, and her cheeks, especially. Utena has caught her by surprise; she had never expected their reunion to go like this: so completely mundane and sudden.

"Maybe you don't remember me though, huh, Himemiya?" The hand that had been saluting jauntily goes to the back of Utena's short-cropped hair in a self-conscious gesture, her eyebrows slanting upward.

Anthy’s lips part, and she realizes she doesn't have the right words for this kind of moment. How does she tell someone, in the scramble of being in the middle of work, mentally still in the middle of _searching_  for said someone, that she’s thought of them every day for the last 10 years.

“It has been 10 years, after all,” says Utena. It’s like she heard Anthy’s thoughts and said them outloud to fill the silence still drawing out between them.

Anthy steels herself. She has to say something, _anything_. “It really has! It’s been too long, Tenjou-san!” It sounds as forced as her smile did back then, but the warm feeling spreads through her chest as she watches Utena’s face light up, glad for the acknowledgement that Anthy remembers, finally.

“Utena’s fine, you don’t need to be formal or anything. We were classmates, right?”

“Yes, Utena …” Finally being able to speak that name to its owner again makes Anthy’s lips curl into a real smile, perhaps the most genuine one she’s ever shown her.

“Anthy!” comes a sudden nudge from behind the counter, “Don’t forget to take that tray to the table by the window!”

Anthy looks between her manager and Utena … _who is sitting right in front of her!_ and feels like everything she’s wanted is slipping away from her.

“It’s really busy in here, isn’t it. That's amazing! People must come here to taste your tea, right?” Utena says. Anthy watches her pick up her bag and dig through it. “I won’t keep you since you’re working, but do you have an email address? Let me have it and I’ll mail you. We can meet up soon! You have your phone on you, right?”

Anthy lies quickly: she’ll be getting a new phone tomorrow (she doesn’t have one at all, which her coworker and manager frequently tease her about), and Utena laughs and scrawls down her name and email address on a piece of crisp white cardstock from her bag. “As soon as you get it, mail me, okay?”

She accepts the cardstock as Utena stands to go, and for a moment Anthy’s struck by Utena’s full presence for the first time in years. She’s gotten a little taller, and the baby roundness of her face has smoothed into the sharper lines of adulthood. She still moves with the same absolute confidence that her 14-year-old-self had. Anthy can’t stop staring. Utena promises again to wait for her message as she gives a little wave and heads out the door. As she passes by the window front of the cafe, Anthy swears she sees a flash of scarlet from a cape spread out behind her.

The desserts are finally delivered to their proper table, though Anthy's hardly even aware she's doing it. Her mind is filled with Utena and her voice and gestures and everything she's missed these years. Her thoughts are a swirl, but one of them is rougher, more nagging, like the growling gurgle as the last of the water slips down the drain:  _it seems like she doesn't remember at all what happened._

Well, maybe that's fine. Maybe that's for the best, actually. 

The sun bursts through the clouds. Anthy’s hair is again the color of an Ebb Tide rose. Her nails are pink, though she definitely hadn’t painted them that morning. When she gets back behind the counter, she realizes she’s left the teapot to steep for far too long, and yet the tea inside is perfect and earns her the same compliments from the patrons as always.

The cherry blossoms come early for the year that very evening, curling open slowly as they dry in the setting sun.

 

The next morning before work, Anthy charms an excellent deal on a phone out of a hapless employee and finds that he’s also more than happy to set it up for her. The first thing she does when she leaves the store is send her first email to Utena. By the time she checks her phone on her lunch break, she finds she already has a reply.

_-The latest phones are the best, aren’t they? I have some free time this week before my next show starts. We should have lunch. Let me know when you can!-_

Just as she finishes reading, her coworker, Tomoko, bursts into the backroom in a flurry of apron and ponytail. “Anthy, Anthy!” she says, gripping the doorframe “The manager says that you were talking to someone from the Treasure Garden Theatre yesterday!”

Anthy blinks. “Treasure Garden Theatre?”

“Oh, how can you not know?” Tomoko’s grip shifts from the doorframe to the bottom of her apron, twisting the cloth mercilessly. “The new theatre created by a former Takarazuka investor. They just formed a brand new troupe and they’re explosively popular!”

“I hadn’t heard a thing about it,” says Anthy.

“This is why you shouldn’t just watch late night infomercials! Geez, you’re hopeless, Anthy. In this job, it’s important to keep up with the times so we can have lively conversations with customers. Hasn’t the manager talked to you about that?”

When Tomoko gets like this, Anthy can’t help but smile at her, because she’s thinking back to another girl with a high ponytail and brown eyes.

“Ah, putting that aside though,” and Tomoko finally has mercy on her apron to free up her hands so she can gesture wildly, “how do you know Tenjou Utena-sama? That’s who the manager said you were talking to yesterday. It couldn’t have been anyone but her; there was no mistaking it, she said!”

And just like that, it hits Anthy: the cardstock that Utena had written on yesterday was for autographs. “We were classmates when we were younger,” she says, falteringly. “But, I haven’t seen her for years.” She doesn’t mention how she was searching for her. She never mentions that part to anyone.

“What? Are you serious?” Tomoko cranes her neck out the doorway to the front. “Manager, I’m borrowing the computer back here. Anthy’s being hopeless again!” There’s no objection from the front, so Anthy is guided to the seat in front of the accounting computer, where Tomoko’s fingers fly across the keyboard expertly. “There’s the official page for the theatre, the fanclub for the troupe, articles, reviews, videos of interviews … just take a look at all of this. Anthy, your former classmate is a super-star! Tenjou Utena-sama, the prince of the Rose Troupe!”

Tomoko leaves Anthy to click through the tabs she's opened for her and she hungrily absorbs everything she can with the little time left on her lunch break. She feels a grin spread across her face as she reads through a few threads on the forums of the fanclub site. So many people love and cherish her already and she'd only been in one show. It makes her heart swell with pride (and, admittedly, some longing). As she keeps scrolling though, a harsh buzzing begins in the back of her head. 

Many of the messages are the same.

Possessive.

Fanatical.

_Calling for a prince_

_their prince_

_perform for us, Prince!_

_bow for us, Prince!_

_accept our gifts, Prince!_

_come date us, Prince!_

_come save us, Prince!_

_itcanonlybeyouonlyyouonlytheprince_

Anthy turns off the monitor and flees back to her shift.

 

After they meet for lunch on a Sunday that Anthy has off, Utena takes her back to her place. It’s a sixth story condominium that she shares with another member of the troupe, and compared to Anthy’s place, it looks like a palace. The inside is all modern furniture and glass and so very unlike Utena that Anthy can’t relax.

It’s too much like _that room_.

 _Too much_.

She doesn’t stay long and Utena doesn’t ask her to. She gives her a handful of tickets. “Come to one of my shows soon. Email me before you do so we can do something afterward. Okay, Himemiya?”

“Of course, Utena,” she says. The tickets find safe-keeping in her threadbare bag. 

On the train ride home, she gets an email from Utena that simply reads:

_-Maybe we should get together at your place next time.-_

Anthy agrees, though there’s hardly room for a guest at her place. There’s something about the way the email was written that bothers her.

It's still sinking in that this is where Utena ended up. She'd gone to high school. She'd been in the drama club. She'd been scouted by a brand new theatre. She is famous. She has lived after Ohtori. She has lived a lot.

Anthy wonders what she herself has been actually doing all these years. 

Outside the train window, she swears she sees the gates of Ohtori pass by. She winces and hunches in on herself. When she opens her eyes again, they’re long gone.

 

She’s more than happy to have Utena over. Despite the fact that everything can be easily seen from just the doorway, Utena seems glad to be inside and exclaims over every little thing. She spends a long time admiring Anthy’s teacup collection, which takes up an entire wall of the small space as shelves upon shelves stacked up and filled with shining porcelain that she keeps spotlessly polished as her one indulgence. She looks for so long, in fact, that Anthy pauses at the hot water dispenser, wondering if there’s something she’s searching for. Utena catches her stare and smiles.

“Oh, it’s all really cute,” she says, stretching out so she can lean on her knees to get a closer look. “I’m just surprised, I guess.”

“Surprised?” says Anthy. She busies herself with filling a teapot with green-tea-temperature water.

“That there isn’t one from back then,” says Utena.

After a moment, Anthy realizes what she means: one from Ohtori. She must have made a strange face, because Utena tilts her head at her curiously. After a beat, Anthy dumps out the water she had already poured into her teapot.

“Himemiya?”

Anthy digs deep into her cabinet and conjures up an entirely different tea than the cheaper green she would serve to just any other guest. She sets it steeping and soon the scent of roses fills the air. Utena’s eyes slide closed dreamily as she breathes deeply. She settles down at the small tea table in the middle of the room as Anthy brings a tray with the teapot and a plate of cookies her manager had sent her home with to set on it.

Anthy sits down properly herself on the edge nearer the teacup collection. “Shall I pick one for you?”

Utena nods, and Anthy takes down one of her favorites: rim lined in gold, blue porcelain the same shade as Utena’s eyes, and a single white rose painted on the bottom of the inside like a hidden heart. Anthy pours the tea and it’s red as blood as it flows from the spout.

The two of them raise their cups to drink at the same time, but before Anthy does, her lips part against the rim. “Utena, do you remember our promise?”

Anthy is not expecting the reaction that gentle inquiry prompts. Utena sets her teacup down hard and her lips thin like she wants something very much but is holding back. “Himemiya … you remember that much ... Why didn't you say something?"

Anthy takes a sip of her tea like kissing someone goodbye before carefully setting it down. "You didn't seem to remember. I had no desire to remind you, in case you didn't want to remember."

The sound of a teacup being tipped over and spilled is loud in the small space. Anthy's eyes widen as she's dragged into Utena's arms, as Utena's face is buried against her neck with a loud sigh that's verging on a sob.

"I thought _you_ didn't remember. I thought _you_ wouldn't want to remember," she breathes. "I'm so glad you're here, Himemiya. We're finally together again. I know we can't go back to that time, and I know it isn't the same place, but that we could keep our promise, that's more than I could ever hope for."

Anthy's eyes grow hot with tears that spill onto Utena's hair. A fierce yet petal-soft feeling unfolds in her chest and she kisses them away with sudden fervor. The touch of her lips seems to awaken something within Utena and she's suddenly kissing Anthy between breaths. 

They fumble their way onto Anthy's futon, and Anthy tips Utena onto her back as they haltingly remove pieces of clothing, each checking with constant furtive glances that this is what the other wants. The whole time, Utena shudders like no one else has touched her like this before.

And maybe, no one truly has. 

Anthy cradles Utena at the small of her back and lowers her lips between her legs, gently sucking for as long as Utena needs it. She draws on that intimate skin with her mouth until Utena tastes and smells like salt. The rhythm of the fingers stroking through Anthy's hair is in time with the rise and fall of Utena's breast, until all at once her legs kick out taut and straight and the rhythm is broken by a rising cry that falls off into ragged gasps as she peaks. Anthy stays where she is, draws her tongue across her again, until she comes twice more before collapsing into shivers of oversensitivity. On the third climax, she breathes Anthy's name. Her first name. 

 

_The cellphone left forgotten on the tea table starts blowing up, vibrating with so many notifications that it dances a bee-like dance all around or maybe like rabbits dance rabbits dance ..._

_-i saw her! she was with this seriously femme girl-_

_-Gross! I can't believe it!-_

_-I won't believe it. Our Utena-sama would never betray us.-_

_-That girl's probably corrupting her right now.-_

_-impure-_

_-disgusting-_

_-dirty-_

_-Who wants a dirty prince!?-_

_-a dirty girl, obviously-_

_-What a witch-_

_-She's stealing her from us!-_

_She's taken our prince_

_Witch_

_Witch_

_Witchwitchwitchwitchwitchwitch_

 

Anthy wakes to the sound of her phone vibrating. The room is too hot and she kicks off the covers, trying to steady her breathing. She hasn't had a dream like that in years. Everything around her feels like a blade and she shudders in numb horror.

The place next to her on the futon is empty. Utena is gone.

She lets out a long breath and finally dares to check her cellphone. There's a single email waiting for her, and it's from Utena:

- _Sorry, I was weak. I can't see you anymore.-_

 

"Anthyyyy."

She blinks. Tomoko is waving a hand in front of her face as she leans on the counter of the cafe, taking in the grey outside again. The grey is back, and she wonders if she'll forget she's a witch again.

...she can't leave things as they are.

"Sorry, Tomoko. Can you cover for me? I have to go."

 

Utena's roommate, Shimako, had answered the door and told Anthy that she had probably gone up to the roof for air, as she sometimes did. The wind is blowing harshly as Anthy forces open the door at the top of the stairway. She knows this kind of wind, she felt it before on the roofs of Ohtori, when she thought of leaping into empty space. The memory of that moment hangs before her eyes as she takes in Utena, standing before the fence securing the top of the building, her hand gripping the chainlink with white knuckles. Anthy's mouth curls as she returns Utena's words to her. "Are you running away?"

Utena turns only partway toward her, catching her gaze sidelong before staring down at her feet. She doesn't seem at all surprised that Anthy came to find her despite her email. "There's nowhere for me to run to."

Anthy takes a step forward but is halted in her tracks by Utena thrusting a handful of papers between them like a shield. Anthy stares at them for a moment before lifting her gaze back to Utena's, which is downcast to the side still. "What is this?"

"My contract with the theatre. This," Utena shakes the contract with a harsh rustle, "controls every aspect of my life, including whether or not I can be with anyone. The fans don't want actors dating anyone. They can't fantasize about me being theirs unless I'm theirs alone. The price of being a 'prince.'" She drops her hand, the papers still crushed in her grip. "So, I can't see you anymore. I don't deserve to see you anyway."

"You can't decide that by yourself, Utena," says Anthy. "After all, we've only just found each other again. There's so much I need to tell you. You--'

"It's already been decided!" Utena shouts, and Anthy has to resist the urge to flinch away. "Just another thing I can't take back. I tried to make up for what I've done. I thought if there was any way I could become a prince, I could repent for not having saved you, and maybe one day we could find each other again and you wouldn't hate me. But it's okay if you do. You can hate me all you want. Hate me. Laugh at me! It's sad, right? It's sad that I'm still just playing prince, after all these years. I'm still like a child!"

Anthy grabs the wrist of the hand holding the contract. Her fingers are thin but they've become strong from surviving. Anthy won't lose her grip this time. "Utena ... you don't understand at all. You never needed to repent. Just by reaching out to me, you saved me. That's why I'm standing here before you, right now, in this moment."

She snatches the contract, and this time, Anthy rips apart the paper that decides Utena's fate. She swears, in the distance, she hears the sound of victorious bells.

 

For the second time in her life, Utena graduates to leave a world. And for the second time in her life, Anthy takes a prince from the world. 


End file.
